Tanking 101: Stats Part 3: Mitigation
Bastosa on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 - 18 Comments Tags: armor, block, block value, mitigation, tanking, tanking 101 
Welcome to part three of my tanking stats overview for Tanking 101. So far we have covered maxing out our defense and talked a bit about avoidance. So we know how to make critical hits impossible, and we know how to avoid hits altogether. Today let’s talk about how to reduce the damage that actually gets through. There are two basic ways to do this. We can block the attack, or we can reduce the damage with our armor.
Blocking of course is only for the Warrior and Paladin tanks out there, but it is an important and somewhat confusing topic, so here we go!
Block Rating: This stat increases the chance that you will block an incoming attack with your shield. You still take damage, but your shield will stop a good part of that damage. This can almost be classified as an avoidance stat, because you stack it much in the same way that you stack dodge and parry, in fact it all fits into the same equation to figure out your overall avoidance. You will find that this is the easiest to stack in terms of avoidance per point, but it also is the least effective due to the fact you are still taking damage. When it comes to avoidance dodge is still king, but BR is a great stat to stack, particularly if you are a Paladin going for the block cap (102.4 total avoidance)
Block Value: The difference between block rating and block value is a major stumbling block for many up and coming tanks. It is important to note that THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING. Where block rating determines your chance to block an attack, block value determines how much of the total damage is blocked. Block value basically says how much damage is going to be shaved off the incoming attack when you block it. So in review, Rating = how often, Value = how much.
Armor: Armor can take a giant chunk of the damage we take in. In many cases it can be reduced by 60-70% if you have a lot of armor. Unfortunately there is really very little we can do to affect this. Armor comes with our gear's item level. So as you upgrade your armor will go up, it is not something to pay particular attention to. In my experience special items with extra armor are rarely worth it. Now I must apologize to the bears out there. I know that armor is a whole different game for you guys, I just can’t say I really know the ins and outs.
What is The Real World Raid Application? This one is pretty simple. Ever wonder why mobs can beat on you all day, yet if one gets loose they will once shot a clothie? They hit them a lot harder than they hit you because you have tons of armor to push take a bite out of the damage. After armor takes off its chuck, then you can block and take off even more. It is easy to see how this can really help, especially against multiple mobs. While many people tend to frown on mitigation as compared to avoidance, I remain a big fan. In many situations the difference between life and death can be a few thousand hit points. When that is the case, you are glad you pushed damage off the table to keep you alive.
So there you go! Now we have covered defense, avoidance, and mitigation. We are far from done however, as there are lots of more stats that play into being an effective tank. We will talk about some of those next time!
Reader Comments (18)
This is why I'm such a big fan of Metamorphosis. I'm a demonology warlock and the huge boost to armor, damage reduction, and stun resist from Metamorphosis is the reason i lived through many a boss fight. Still, clothies belong in the rear with our leet deeps.
NIce, I'm a holy pally and was thinking of going prot.
All of this stuff is very helpful. I am a prospecting Death Knight Tank, and I think that without this information, I would have had no idea of what kinds of gear to look for.
Thanks Bastosa.
I just became a tank(lvl 78) and working on this gear, I never knew quite the difference between block rating and block value but know I know thanks again.
Yeah, good job. These posts are very helpful, as sometimes I play my RL friend's prot warrior and am learning the tanking process.
thanks for the explanation of these stats,now i understand better the difference between block value and block rating
Acctually me and my friend have been talking alot about tanking latly, and whether bears are screwed or not. See my friend rolled a bear (back to boomkin) and i roll a prot warrior. And we talked alot about one thing... All bears get is dodge rateing and massive amounts of stamina! How? Well as you know they were leather, who else weres leather? Rouges. So thry share similar armor, although bears need alot of dodge rateing and stamina on there armor, which is pretty much all they get. As for armor they get a bouns to it when they turn bear so armors not a big deal its just.. no block rateing or parry... well mabye some parry but no block. I myslef have oooh like 50% block rateing 30% parry and 30% dodge something like that and around 19K health give or take a thousand. and a bear mite have only 40% dodge 20% parry and no block but something like 24K health! I mean even though they have that much with so few armor and dodge and what not They're going to go down! Now i dont know about you but thats just how it seems to me, so are any of you bears? You get to be head tank in big raids with acctually your guild? And heres another thing will Frost DKs ever tank??? (i dont think so :P)
Turalyon (normal)
Prot warrior : for the horde
i think most of us can say that all tanking classes (from prot warriors to bears or dk's) are viable tanking classes as long as they follow the great guidelines bastosa has laid out. I've seen frost dk's tank Naxx like it's candy and i've also seen prot pallies really struggle. It's wasn't a class issue it was a gear and stat issue. One stacked tanking stats the other ignored them and relied on his spec. You can't be a great tank unless you got the stats and the spec imo. These posts i hope will help the upcoming tanks understand what they need. keep 'em up :)
@Deidare
I play a druid, moonkin, but i used to tank in BC... well in bear form you cannot parry, since you have no weapon. :) As a bear tank you realy want to stack dodge since you cant parry or block, with of course alot of stamina. BTW bears out there usually have ALOT of armour (around 75-85%!!!!! at lvl 80) with that much armor you can take a beating from Sargeras! OK, but maybe Hogger? ;P
Maybe mate you should point out how base stats can help with mitigation, alot of new druids would do well to remember that agility will greatly add to their armor aswell as their dodge. Also strength right now is a very attractive base stat for warriors and paladins, due to the way it adds 0.5 BV per point. Very handy if your blockcapped. I myself have around 1100 strength in raids and in the description when highlighted by my mouse it normal adds 507BV.
For death knights wanting to tank strength is still good it scales with some of their talents and abilitys. how well im unsure maybe someone can explain for me.
Kurtizzle Hellfire lvl 80 Palla Tonk
In accordence to the above maybe a blogg for Effective Health (EH) and tanking base stats in the future would be handy for the new guys.
Regards :P
This is rly good. However in my exp i found out that too much dodge avoidance is bad for warriors. Many times i have been finding myself rage-less because of the dodge.
Also i think for a warrior tank is important to get parry as much a possible, def at lest on 500 and to have a resi. Resilience is a rly powerful stat when it comes with tanking. It not also reduces the chance to crit you but also the effects of debufs and the damage that a crit can do to you (in pvp situations). I'm not getting much in to block because most tanking gear gives you enough block and block rating.
Here's a good article about getting geared for tanking -
http://www.afraidyet.net/forums/warriors/77054-tank-preparation-guide-level-80-raiding.html
Great series here! I went frost with my DK so I've slowly been learning more about tanking.
I'm kind of a noob when it comes to high level tanking, so different people have told me different things about necessary talents. I'm pretty much all frost on my DK with some points in Anticipation and Blade Barrier, but I've heard different people suggest different talents. So it would be cool if you did a blog with some sample talent trees for the different classes. Just a thought! Thanks again.
@deidare
like kreak said: bears make up for the lack of block and parry for their extremely high armor and health (which should be higher than warr/pala when you have the same gear level) Death Knights is something else as well, they rely on armor bonus from frost presence (since they have no shield) and alot of dodge and parry, and magic damage reduction.
I should never listen to my friend next time he tells me something about a druid , my fault guys i didnt realize bears could not parry. As for frost DKs i dont think they'll ever match up for being tanks it depends on what you can use for aggro, stats, and the player. I just dont think they'll ever be as good as another tanking class.
I'm enjoying listening to what you all have to say however.. it was my feelings nad just me and my friends judgements to whether someone would choose bear to tank over a warrior or a DK over a pally. I personally think that in my realm everyone would choose warrior, Bear, pally, and then DK. What can i say we like bears alittle?
(sorry for double posting)
@Deathhell. Why would a tank ever stack resilience? We're talking about fighting raid content.
I also have to take issue with the OP saying that block rating factors into your overall avoidance. This is just flat out wrong. Especially since in your previous post, you said this, and I quote:
"Block technically falls into the “mitigation” category where it only stops a portion of the incoming damage, so I will cover that next time, for now let’s talk about dodge and parry."
Block contributes to your effective health. As such, since avoidance and effective health are mutually exclusive, block rating/value and dodge/parry/miss are mutually exclusive.
I think this post could benefit from some simple equations, or links to posts with the math to back up your claims.
@Dolaiim
You can actually stack def rating with Resiliance to become defense capped and un-crittable by NPCs